Final Fantasy Live Letter XXX Preview Patch 3.3 Part 2

Admittedly readers, this was quite the experience. This morning was the first time I have stayed up to watch the live letter “live.” I thoroughly enjoyed listening and viewing the information Yoshida displayed and I am thoroughly excited about what Patch 3.3 will bring.

Nidhogg

The Final Dragonsong War Encounter

A lengthy amount of features displayed by Yoshida for this monumental XXX Live Letter (Part 2), detailing some of what we can expect in Patch 3.3, Revenge of the Horde, for Final Fantasy XIV.

Opening scene is viewing Yoshida playing his Lalafell facing toe-to-toe against the new Trial that will be introduced with Patch 3.3 – yes, it is going to be Nidhogg. The Nidhogg encounter will include a normal mode and an extreme mode. Weapons will be obtainable from the Extreme version. This trial against Nidhogg is the “Final Boss” for the Dragonsong War story ark. At this point in the twitch broadcast there were roughly 5,400 viewers – a sizeable considering how early in the morning it is for most in North America.

Yoshida pulls Nidhogg for the crowd and is instantly pummeled to death – firebreath is confirmed. The encounter looks to have a sixty minute encounter time – let’s just say Nidhogg won the first 1v1.

As an aside. It does look as if Yoshida’s cooldowns on his Lalafell automatically refreshed when the encounter refreshed, which begs the question: why hasn’t this feature been implemented for raiding or even regular dungeons? It seems it would be fairly convenient and other MMOs like World of Warcraft do provide players with similar features.

Aquopolis

Sink Your Gil Into Dragonskin Maps

Yoshida takes a brief pause to set up for the gameplay demo for the new instance/encounter “Aquopolis.” Essentially, players will need to form a party and complete their Timeworn Dragonskin Map. Before a portal will spawn players must loot all treasure from the treasure coffer. At this point, it is possible that a portal will spawn. Based on descriptions in the discussion, there is roughly a 20% chance of the portal spawning that will take your party into the new instance – Aquopolis.

Funny enough, as Yoshida and his crew defeat the map, the loot is none other than a Bluebird Minion – which is fairly elusive to some and is quite pricey on many servers. Players will have ten (10) minutes to enter the Aquopolis after the portal spawns, so plenty of time to dish out the loot! Yoshida did mention Aquopolis will be difficult to clear with only two people. The instance is optimized for a party of one tank, one healer and two dps.

After entering the Aquopolis, a first room that shows a circular platform reminiscent of FFIX underground secret transportation from Lindblum to Alexandria, Yoshida traverses down a hallway into a new room that is surrounded by the purple encounter borders. In the middle of this room is a treasure chest. Similar to treasure hunting, players will attempt to open the chest and the room will then fill with monsters to kill – in this instance, Yoshida was attacked by six (6) spriggans. Once these monsters are eliminated players may open the chest for the chance to receive additional loot. In the video it looks like the first room chest contained one odorless animal fat. You can also receive materia and crystals from this first room.

In all, there are seven (7) rooms you can traverse through in hopes of getting rarer and rarer loot as you move deeper into the Aquopolis. However, moving onto the next room is not so simple as defeating the first room challenges. Before entering the second room, players are confronted with a choice of two doors. If the player chooses correctly then players will move on to the next room with the possibility of receiving more rare or exclusive items; however, if the player chooses the wrong door, then the Aquopolis will end. Yoshida explained there is roughly a 50% chance of moving on to the next room.

What else is known at this point? The ilvl is synced to 180 inside the Aquopolis. Further, it was said that the 7th room will drop Grade V materia as a reward. If you spawn a rare chest, the boss will likely be a Cyclops Boss and the loot will be super rare and the items from this chest should go for an extraordinary amount on the marketboard.

Finally, there will be a room with gil and goblins. Your task will be to remove the goblins in order to secure your new gil. The gil ranges from 100 gil upward – although no maximum amount was discussed.

A vague reference to minions as loot was discussed!!!!

Fenrir

Updated and Flying

Yoshida mounts Fenrir and starts flying!!! It seems this update will add a gorgeous animation to allow for Fenrir to fly.

Raid Finder

Yes Practice is Welcome

A breathe of fresh air may be coming with Patch 3.3 in the form of a new Raid Finder. The feature will only work and be used “for the latest Savage raids.” The powerpoint slide states:

[su_quote]A new party matching system to help players find like-minded individuals to challenge end game encounters within the same datacenter.[/su_quote]

The basics of this feature will allow players from a datacenter to join into a queue in order to attempt to practice or complete raid tier encounters based upon a set number of parameters. Players will be able to set certain requirements in order to be paired with players of their comparable skill (is the hope). Some of the options/features players will choose from include:

Whether the player has completed the raid previously

Whether the player is attempting to clear the fight, or simply working on progression;

Can select which phase you want to work on (note: there is some confusion as to whether you will be able to “skip” certain points of a fight to practice on, say Vortexer in AS6, or whether the “phase” selector is merely a way to match you with players who are working on the same point of the fight);

Able to ensure people have not cleared in order to ensure players will receive two chests upon a clear;

May permit players who have cleared to assist to join in to help if you do not mind only obtaining one chest.

It seems as though Dravanian Hinterlands may no longer be a meeting spot for all raiders. Gone may be the days of meeting outside of Alexander or Midas, seeing the familiar faces of those other linkshells. Perhaps losing an opportunity to show off your spoils from the week or inspecting your rival to see whether they outgear you yet. Regardless, it seems players and statics wishing to enter the new raid tier dungeons will do so through the Raid Finder as a full party. You can queue as a full party with the player composition you choose. However, if you are not a full party then players will be restricted to the following:

[su_quote]*when queing as a full party, you are free to select any role composition you like.[/su_quote]

“Purpose” Selector

As previously mentioned players will be allowed to choose between whether they are seeking to clear, or whether the player is only seeking to practice the encounter. It seems there are two options: “Duty Completion” and “Practice.”

Regarding “Duty Completion”

The “Duty Completion” option is for players seeking to clear the encounter for the week. If this option is selected, then the same jobs will not be matched together, e.g., two warriors will not be placed into the same group.

Regarding “Practice”

[su_quote]When selecting “practice” from “purpose”, only the “1 other dps” slot can be filled with a job already present.[/su_quote]

[su_quote]Practice phase selection does not entail the actual skipping of phases.[/su_quote]

**** Yoshida did mention, if queue times become too long then this rigid one class system may be modified

New Frontlines

Field of Glory (Shatter)

Yoshida explained that the footage was prerecorded in an effort to save time while also showing off multiple aspects of the new PvP instance. The theme is Coerthan. The PvP gear is based on one of the new beast tribes. The map requires players to capture points on the map. There are three circles for players to capture. Once captured, rotating Grand Company banners rotate on the capture point to denote which Grand Company has captured the point. Players will gain points by having the circle claimed.

Additionally, it seems there are large ice crystals on the map. Players will be required to destroy these ice crystals. Once destroyed, the ice crystals do not regenerate for the entire map. Yoshida discussed the purpose was to incite more conflict towards the end of the PvP encounter due to more and more pillars being destroyed throughout the entirety of the battle.

Housing Updates

Flower Power!!

This was a great little section of the Live Letter. The video shows Yoshida in a medium size house. Very plain. I want to guess Glade Wall and Glade Floor? I digress. Yoshida waddles his Lalafellan legs up the stairs and shows us what seems to be an indoor greenhouse. Yoshida must have been busy working on these flowers because they are astounding.

As the above image shows, there are vases on the left, sitting on top of a Sylph Table. The sparkling flower pot is the new featured indoor “gardening” that will be introduced in Patch 3.3. In sum, it seems as though, there will be various types of indoor pots for players to use. The flowers will work in a similar fashion to outdoor gardening – players will need seeds and soil. However, players will be able to change the soil during the flower’s growth to change the flowers color. Perhaps this feature will work similar to Chocobo feeding to change the color of your chocobo. Yoshida mentioned that depending on the soil mix a player uses, the flower’s color will change.

The flower vases on the left are the end result of what players can do with the flowers once they are grown. Players can craft the flowers into a flower vase. Further, players can also glamour the flowers onto their player character.

Oh, for one last little teaser, Yoshida showed off the Wyvern from Final Fantasy XI as a minion. Could this be a way to tease the player base as the producer, or will this minion be added into the game for everyone in game to use??

Crafting & Gathering

More for the Masses

Confirmed shared gear set for crafting classes. This set will be higher level gear than the red script or i170 crafted sets currently live on FFXIV. Yoshida does state that players will be receiving new battle gear in 3.4 that is made by crafters, similar to the current Eikon 220 crafted items currently available. The new shared crafting set coming in Patch 3.3 will be required for crafters to craft the new Patch 3.4 battle gear.

The new shared crafting set will be able to be melded with materia. However, players will be able to obtain materia more easily and it seems that higher end materia will become more readily available for more players to obtain. Look out Craftsman Materia horders, it may be time to dump your investment prior to the patch. You don’t have long!!

As seems to be the standard, the specifics were left out, but vague hints were provided on how crafting materia will become more easily available. It seems the beast tribe quests (the new Moogle and Dragon beast tribes) will allow players to obtain crafting materia. Further, through the main scenario, players will be able to obtain a one-time Grade V crafting materia.

New Gear Preview

Anima Update

The next relic step will require players to feed their “anima spirit” certain items in order to raise the stats. The maximum secondary stat you can gain is 120 on the weapon. By feeding the anima spirit, the player will be changing the secondary stats on the weapon. For each item players feed, the player will gain +3 to a stat, however, Yoshida mentioned if the player is lucky the stat may be raised by +4 or even +5.

Players will be given a broader number of ways to attain the items to increase the stats on this relic step. Essentially, once this step is complete, the new relic will be the equivalent to if a player were to meld three (3) Grade V Materia to the weapon. The ilvl and primary stats were not discussed – it looks like we will have to wait until the patch notes are released to find out this bit of information.

On another note, the crystal drop rate for the i170 relic step will be increased to allow players to attain the i170 relic step quicker once Patch 3.3 is implemented. There was no mention of any change to the unidentified parts anima step.

Grab-Bag of Changes and Features

HUD Layout Save Feature

Patch 3.3 will include an update to the UI System for Final Fantasy XIV. Players will now be able to save, up to four, preset User Interface set-ups. Players can use these customized UI sets any way they see fit. The possibilities are really limitless, other than the four players can create. Players could save one set for raiding, one for questing, one for dungeons, and perhaps a separate one for PvP. Players will be able to use /slash commands to implement their saved UI – i.e., players can make a macro and click one button to switch.

Recommended Gear

The recommended gear option will be ilvl based and was only discussed briefly.

PS4 Draw Quality Implemented

Playstation 4 users should be happy that Square Enix will be implementing an update to the Draw Quality. Essentially, this is roughly the same as adding DirectX11 for Playstation 4 users.

New Mentor Icons Added

Mentor status will be designated by type:

[su_quote]Mentor / PvE Mentor / Trade Mentor / PvP Mentor[/su_quote]

PvP Preset Actions

Players will now enjoy the ability to set different PvP actions for every job, without the need to reset points every time the players changes to a new job. This will function similar to the gear sets players can currently make. You’re able to set different PvP sets for the same job, in case you want to run different builds.

New Camera Features & Group Poses

New camera features are going to be implemented in Patch 3.3 to allow players to take better screenshots. Yoshida says “don’t use during Duty Finder.” Additionally, new Group Poses will be implemented for “friends, free company, and Ivory Chapel.”

Combat-Related Auto-Translate Phrases

Finally, new combat-related auto-translate phrases, such as “gather together” will be implemented as a result of the new Raid Finder.

[This post is being updated for content as of 10:02am EST].

By Fey|
2016-05-24T21:13:16+00:00 May 22nd, 2016|Final Fantasy XIV|Comments Off on Final Fantasy Live Letter XXX Preview Patch 3.3 Part 2

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